


Fight For Us Both

by strangestquiet



Series: No Beginning, No End [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangestquiet/pseuds/strangestquiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yosuke succumbs to a mysterious illness after murdering his Shadow.  As the consequences of destroying such a vital aspect of the self become clear, Souji searches for a way to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part 2 in a series, preceded by [No Beginning, No End](http://archiveofourown.org/works/47111) and followed by [The Scars We Get Together](http://archiveofourown.org/works/149684).
> 
> I'm also in the process of making this fic a doujinshi, which can be found [here](http://fightforusboth.blogspot.com/)!

_December 17th, 2020_

  
“It’s probably nothing,” Yosuke said, when they were lounging on the sofa together one evening after dinner. “Stress or something like that. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

“…Hmm?” Souji looked up briefly from the pile of half-marked term papers in his lap. “First time what’s happened?”

Yosuke didn’t respond for a long moment; the notes he was picking out on his guitar were building and climbing, and he seemed to want to finish that thought before getting around to the one he had just voiced. “Mmm,” he finally mumbled. “I dunno. Mostly it’s just static, but sometimes it’s kind of like I can hear…” A sour note sounded beneath his fingers, and he winced, narrowing his eyes as he stared hard at the fretboard and tried again until he got it right. “…Y’know what, never mind. It’s stupid.”

“Now you _have_ to tell me,” said Souji, absently scribbling a note in the margin of one of his students’ papers.

“It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”

Souji usually liked nights like this, when they could spend time together even though there was work to be done. Yosuke was content to sit and play in relative silence, and Souji had grown used to grading tests and papers to the sounds of improvised music, the squeak of calloused fingertips as they slid between frets. It was relaxing. Tonight, however, the scales and chords being played were more minor than major, more melancholy than soothing, and it was making him feel even _more_ depressed that he had to work all night than usual. “Can’t forget it,” he said, by way of prodding the other man into discussion. “My memory’s too good for that.”

There was a sigh, short and vaguely irritated, and accompanied by the jarring noise of open strings being strummed rather abruptly. Yosuke silenced the cacophony a second later with his palm. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But it’s stupid, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“All right…” Yosuke began tuning the low E, probably to give his hands something to do while he talked, and took a deep breath. “Lately I feel like something’s wrong with me. Like, I feel _paranoid_ almost, like someone’s watching me all the time. And… sometimes I think I can hear Susano-O.” He frowned. Moved on to the A and tuned that to match. “Does that make sense? You’ve got like a billion other yous in there, so you must know what I’m talking about…”

“Kind of,” said Souji, putting his pen down at last. “They’ve never really talked in _words_, but I think I understand.”

“So they don’t – y’know… say things?”

Souji shook his head. “No. But sometimes they – _react_ to things, I guess. Some of them really seem to like you, some of them are drawn toward Nanako-chan. Things like that. It’s something I feel, not hear.”

Yosuke snorted. “Gee, thanks. Glad to know there’s a few tiny parts of you that like me.”

Souji resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Yosuke had never quite grown out of his self-deprecating streak, however cloaked in humour it may be, but he sensed that right now was not the appropriate time to call him on it. “They’re all me, so they _all_ like you. Some of them are just… louder about it than others.”

He smiled a little and continued tuning, by ear, the way Souji liked it: two strings at a time, two discordant sounds gradually becoming one perfect note. After he was done, his hands stilled entirely, and Souji glanced up when he noticed that the room was silent once again, only to find Yosuke staring at the far wall pensively, his brows drawn close together. It was unsettling, to see him so disturbed by something when he was normally good at brushing off his worries. Souji reached out and grasped his hand, pulled it away from the instrument and toward himself, and lightly kissed his fingers. The strings they’d been pressing down on lent them a sharp smell of copper, as always, a smell his brain had long ago learned to associate with him.

“So…” Yosuke asked quietly, “what about the _other_ other you?”

Souji paused, Yosuke’s hand still pressed against his lips.

“I don’t hear that either,” he said. “Do you?”

“No,” said Yosuke, too quickly, with a shake of his head and a smile that was all deflection and no authenticity as he drew his hand back. “I don’t.”

Souji didn’t manage to press the issue. At precisely that moment, Nanako emerged from her room holding the cordless phone in one hand and extending it toward Yosuke.

“Yosuke-nii,” she announced, “it’s your dad.”

“Great,” he scowled, propping his guitar against the couch’s armrest. “I should really just make a recording and get it over with. _Yeah, Dad, still gay for Souji. Can we at least pretend to be adults about it? No? Okay. Looking forward to another awkward day at work with you tomorrow._”

Souji offered him a shrug and a sympathetic little half-smile. The eventual disclosure of their relationship to Yosuke’s family had turned into a long-standing feud between them. The Hanamuras had so far avoided making a mess of things – nothing so dramatic as disowning their son or trying to interfere with their lives in any way – but their distaste was palpable, and Yosuke’s relationship with them had become severely strained. As luck would have it, they appeared to be the only people in Inaba who didn’t like Souji, apparently convinced that he had single-handedly lured their son into a sordid, sinful life of monogamy and child-rearing. Souji liked to think that someday they’d thank him for getting him that far.

As Yosuke stood up and Nanako passed him the phone, Souji asked her, “I didn’t hear the phone ring. Were you talking to someone on the other line?”

“Her mystery boyfriend, I bet,” said Yosuke, already disappearing around the corner into the kitchen with the phone pressed to his ear.

“Yosuke-nii!” she whined in protest.

“I want to meet him,” said Souji sternly, and he was satisfied to see that his tone had made her redden and stutter.

“C-come on, big bro, I’m seventeen—“

“He’s _twenty-two_. I want to meet him.”

“Fine,” she sighed, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly for effect. “He’s planning a trip out here after New Year’s. Can you wait that long?”

“A city boy? Well now I really don’t trust him.”

“Big bro!”

“Would you give it a _rest_?!” The angry outburst from the kitchen startled them both.  When it was clear that Yosuke wasn't yelling at them, they glanced at each other nervously.

“Yosuke-nii’s still fighting with his parents?” Nanako asked after a moment.

“Sort of,” said Souji. “It’s complicated. Don’t worry, he can handle it. He’ll probably be in a bad mood when he hangs up though, so just hope he doesn’t switch over to the other line to give your friend a piece of his mind when he’s done.”

“_Big bro!_”

Souji smiled warmly to let her know that he wasn’t entirely serious. Just partially serious. Dojima would never rest easy if he knew he wasn’t looking out for her in exactly the same frustratingly well-intentioned way he would himself, after all.

  


***

  
_January 8, 2021_

  
Souji tumbled out of the television and into the foggy backlot, all but completely seized by a terror that had been building on itself under its own momentum ever since he left home. While he’d been waiting for Nanako’s boyfriend to arrive for his pre-arranged instillation of the fear of God, Yosuke’s father had called to demand why his son had decided not to show up for work today. He’d had a terse reply all prepared – there was an unpleasant undertone to the conversation that this was somehow all _his_ fault – but then he’d glanced at the clock, and then at the dark streets outside their kitchen window, and realized that Yosuke was several hours late in getting home.

One call to his cell phone had yielded an _out of service area_ response, and that was the only hint he’d needed about where to begin his search. Now, as he slid on his old glasses and saw clearly through the fog of the other world, he wished he could have been wrong just this once.

A body lay amongst the chalk outlines on the floor, a heap of sprawled limbs splayed in a shallow pool of its own blood. Souji’s hand found his mouth. He recognized at once the shock of red-brown hair and the clothes he’d worn to work that morning and the thin outline of a back he’d traced his fingers down more times than he could recall…

Daisoujou reached Yosuke before he did, appearing in response to his horror rather than to any verbal or mental command. He knew what to do before Souji could even _think_ of it – healing light washed over him, around him, but when it and the Persona had both faded, nothing had changed.

The body was heavier than Yosuke ever was in life. Gravity seemed to work twice as hard to keep him rooted to the floor instead of allowing him to be lifted into Souji’s arms, pulled his limbs down in a sick imitation of a ragdoll as Souji clung to him, cradling his head close to his chest and tucking his face down into his hair. His hand roamed quickly to locate the wound that could no longer be closed, and he made a thick, choked noise as found it in his side, deep and wide and leaking blood – not pouring, anymore, not like it would with a pulse behind it. He wanted to scream, shut his eyes tight and opened his mouth to do so, but his throat was constricted, tarred thickly with despair, and nothing came out.

They hadn’t had enough time together yet. They hadn’t done enough, hadn’t wasted enough days doing nothing at all, hadn’t fought enough or made up enough and when was the last time he’d said he loved him? What happened to _forever_, what happened to their _promise_? Their promise that—

Souji looked up, through wet and cloudy and stinging eyes, and stared at those limp, lifeless hands.

Yosuke wasn’t wearing his ring.

Inside him, his Personas began to swirl around anxiously. But it wasn’t Daisoujou this time; it was Mada and Pyro Jack and Surt and the other Magicians. And even more alarmingly, it was Izanagi, murmuring a wordless warning in his ear that _something wasn’t right_. All of them were restless, highly on edge, but not despairing. He was bitterly sick with himself, finding their lack of concern a disgusting betrayal of his grief – they were _him_, his anguish was theirs as much as it was his own, so why didn’t they care that the man they loved was dead…?

He kept Mada closest to the forefront of his mind these days, the one he and Yosuke had created together, the one that always seemed the most pleased whenever he was nearby, but that didn’t stop him from being startled when the Persona materialized beside him. He felt a faint urging from his other self, to look, to really _see_ – and then he was sure something was wrong. Izanagi knew it and Mada knew it, and that meant _he_ knew it as well.

What he didn’t know was how he knew it, exactly, or how he knew what to do next. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and looked at the corpse cradled protectively in the ring of his arms, and then hesitantly touched its cold, pale face with a bloodied and unsteady hand. Yosuke looked different, an insubstantial imitation of his former self, and it was so, so painful to even look at him, never mind to touch those familiar features like this… His fingers traced cracked lips and high cheekbones and soft skin, and then moved to the glasses and slid them down off his nose. With his thumb, he slowly, gingerly moved a single eyelid, just a fraction of an inch—

Just far enough to catch a glimpse of the glassy yellow iris underneath.

He recoiled. The body tumbled out of his arms as he scrambled backward, rolled brokenly onto the bloodstained linoleum and lay there, rejected. All of his grief churned and curdled inside him, turned sickening and sour, and Souji had to swallow repeatedly to keep the bile from rising any higher in his throat.

“What the hell is this…?” he panted. Mada gnashed the teeth of his monstrous mouth, and said nothing as he turned around and raised one of his multiple arms in a pointed gesture.

Souji looked to where he was pointing, to the stack of televisions that functioned as the gateway between this world and his own. There was blood on the glass of the bottommost one, smeared handprints and other indistinct shapes, like some kind of grotesque finger painting. With a sick jolt, he realized what it meant: someone on this side had been trying desperately to get out.

Mada moved off to one side of the backlot, tugging on Souji’s mind as he went, urging him to follow. He stood up, legs still shaking beneath him, but worry was already pushing aside his fit of grief as he understood the truth. Yosuke was alive. He was alive and probably injured and trapped in here, unable to cross over to their world without his— without…

“Take me to him,” said Souji, setting off at a stumbling run. Mada disappeared from sight, taking up residence in Souji’s mind once again, but that was all right. He knew where to go, and that meant Souji knew where to go just as well.  


  


***

He ran without thinking to the twisted shopping district. For a moment, Souji thought that he was going to end up in the Konishi liquor store again, but as soon as the idea occurred to him, he knew that wasn’t right. He slowed and came to a stop in the middle of the ruined street underneath the black-and-red nightmare sky, and then turned, casting his gaze up and down the lines of broken and shuttered-up buildings. His eyes finally alighted on the barber shop next to Tatsumi Textiles, and Mada thrummed inside him.

He went round the back and climbed the stairs to his own apartment. His hand came away bloody when he touched the door handle, and his suspicions were confirmed: for better or worse, Yosuke was there, or at least _had_ been there. It was a start, he thought, and he stepped inside.

Their home was exactly like it was back in the real world, except mired in a darkness so deep his eyes couldn’t penetrate it, even when he paused for a minute to let them adjust. When he came back late from work some nights, either Yosuke or Nanako would always leave a light on for him, but in this world, the light switch by his hand did nothing when he flicked it on. But he’d lived there for four years now – he didn’t need light to know his way around, to avoid tripping over the first step up into the kitchen, to not crash into the table as he crept forward into silence and darkness, listening hard for signs that he was not alone.

“Yosuke,” he called out, when he was sure he couldn’t hear the telltale noises of shadows nearby. “It’s me. Are you here?”

A sudden sound from their bedroom made him jump, a chaotic, ear-splitting din of mismatched musical notes that ran through him like nails on chalkboard. He bolted toward the noise and hissed “Pyro Jack!” before he reached the door, wincing from the sudden bright light as his pumpkin-headed Persona appeared, swinging his lantern. Souji threw open the door and let Pyro Jack float in ahead of him, casting the room in the unearthly lantern glow, and held his breath.

Yosuke didn’t react to being discovered. He sat shaking in the far corner of the room, clutching his guitar and plucking at it tunelessly – _worse_ than tunelessly, Souji had never heard such an awful noise – and gave no indication that he realized he was no longer alone.

“Yosuke!” Souji hurried across the room and knelt before him. His face was drawn, pale; the shadows of his features waxed and waned with the swaying of the lantern light as Pyro Jack bobbed above their heads, and it was so eerie, Yosuke looked so unlike himself, that Souji had to dismiss his Persona and let the room be plunged into darkness once more. But the darkness didn’t help. He could still see the image burned onto his retinas, could hear the hitches and snags in Yosuke’s uneven breathing, could smell…

Copper. So strong he could practically taste it, stronger than he ever remembered it being on Yosuke’s fingertips. He leaned in across the guitar and wrapped his arms around him, and one of his hands rested against ominously sticky, matted clumps of hair when he did. “Are you hurt?” he asked urgently.

A slow, rattling breath was drawn, and then released just as slowly, and Yosuke made a faint noise in the affirmative. God – how long had he _been_ here today, trapped and bleeding and alone in a way he hadn’t been since before they’d even met? What would have happened if he hadn't realized where he'd disappeared to as quickly as he did? Souji didn’t let go as Daisoujou reappeared and attempted to heal him again, and this time when the cool, calming light had come and gone, Yosuke’s trembling had eased somewhat.

“S-Souji…”

“It’s all right,” he soothed him, still oddly high on the sheer relief of finding him alive after what he'd seen in the entrance hall. “I’m here to take you home.”

“D-don’t want… wish you’d n-never…”

Souji eased the instrument away, though Yosuke fought him futilely as he did – it was his object of comfort, even if it was only a copy in this world, even if it seemed for some reason that Souji didn't understand that he could no longer make it work. “I wouldn’t leave you here,” he assured him gently, and then because he remembered now why it was so important to say so, added, “I love you…”

“W-wish you… d-didn’t…”

“Don’t say that…”

“W-wish you’d… n-never told me…”

Souji pulled back, stung, as his Personas began to act up again. _He’s confused. Disoriented. He doesn’t mean it. Get him_ out _of here. How long can a person last without—_

“Your Shadow,” Souji whispered. “Yosuke, did you… did you kill your Shadow?”

Yosuke laughed into Souji’s shoulder, a halting, crazed sort of bursting cackle. “I don’t hear him anymore…” he choked out after the fit had passed, and Souji didn’t need his Personas to tell him that everything had just gone from bad to worse.

  


***

  
Getting Yosuke out of the other world had been the easy part, Souji was dismayed to discover. By the time he managed to get him home, he could no longer speak or stand under his own power, and instead slumped heavily on Souji’s shoulder and mumbled incoherently for no discernable reason. It was unsettlingly like the worst days of December, back during their year together in high school, when Inaba had been full of people made ill by the mysterious fog. He kept talking all the way home, desperately trying to keep Yosuke awake and alert, but it seemed that with each step he became increasingly more delirious, and completely incapable of comprehending anything that was said.

Souji had sometimes wondered, back when he’d still thought maybe he didn’t have a Shadow, what it would be like to have one and lose it. Surely it couldn’t be all that bad, he’d concluded: he got along just fine. As he all but carried him up the stairs to their apartment, he found himself wishing he was still naïve enough to believe that, so that he could believe Yosuke was going to be just fine, too.

Nanako was there when they arrived home, and so was her boyfriend, a tall, gangly young man with ridiculous flyaway hair. They never got as far as introductions. She helped him get Yosuke into bed while the boy watched them, clearly alarmed – the two of them were covered in blood by now, and Yosuke wouldn’t stop making those weird _noises_ \-- and then she ushered him away from the scene as quickly as she could.

Yosuke didn’t sleep all night. Before sunrise, Souji and Nanako were in the waiting room of Inaba Municipal Hospital, holding each other and not speaking.


	2. Chapter 2

_January 11, 2021_

  
The walk from home to the bus stop was chilly, and Souji shoved his hands into his pockets as he trudged down the street toward the shopping district’s south end. It was cold enough to snow, the kind of cold you could smell on the air, but the sky seemed content to be simply grey and overcast and miserable. There really wasn’t enough space for a kotatsu in their little apartment, but Nanako had insisted on getting one during their first winter together, and neither he nor Yosuke were cruel enough to say no. They would set it up on days just like this and sit around it with warm drinks, and god, what he wouldn’t give to be doing that right now instead of—

He shook himself. _Stop it. That won’t do you any good._

As he walked by the entrance to the shrine, he slowed his steps and glanced toward it. Despite all his time spent there when he was younger, Souji had never made a donation to the shrine and its guardian fox himself, nor had he ever left a wish on one of the emas. Something of the mystery had been taken out of the entire process with the knowledge that he had been the one turning those requests into reality, and he sincerely doubted there was another high school boy running around town helping strangers with their problems. And even if there were, his situation was miles away from finding a lost dog or helping someone get over a phobia.  And yet…

Abruptly, he stepped off the road and veered onto the path that led up to the shrine steps and the golden offertory box. The shrine was silent, lifeless. He looked around for some sign that an animal had been there, but saw nothing in the bare trees and shrubs, nor anywhere he could see around the shrine itself. How long did foxes live, anyway? Feeling somewhat silly and downcast at the same time, he tossed some money into the offertory box, took one of the wooden plates, and wrote his wish on the back of it. When he was finished, he tied it on the rack with the others, turned, and left without another look back, hurrying to make the bus that would take him back to the hospital.

What would he have done if the fox had brought him an ema like that? He wouldn’t have had any idea what to do about it, and he couldn’t even blame that on being a stupid teenager at the time.

He didn’t have any idea what to do about it now, either.

  


***

There had been a time, forever ago, when Souji had actually liked the hospital. He remembered Sayoko fondly, remembered that she had made it something more than a silent, sterile, bland environment during the time when they’d both worked there. He’d met Hisano in those halls, too; dear, wise Hisano, who’d taught him a great deal more about love and longing and loss than he’d been able to fully understand or appreciate at the time. Not for the first time since back then, he wished he could speak with her just once more, but she’d never told him exactly where she was going before she’d said her goodbyes, never mind that it had been ten years since he’d last seen her. Like the fox at the shrine, she probably wasn’t even alive anymore.

With the two of them gone, without them to stave off thoughts of Kanji and Yumi and Dojima and Nanako, he knew for certain now that he hated this place. He hated the bare walls and the stifling, disinfected smell and the way everyone pretended it was a place of healing, despite the air being absolutely rife with anxiety. But at the same time, he didn’t want to go home. At home he had to sleep in an empty bed, listen to the deafening white noise of a silent apartment, and fear that it was only a glimpse of things to come.

Yosuke wasn’t getting better. He didn’t move at all anymore, didn’t breathe a word except weak, distant moans, and Souji hadn’t been able to get him to make eye contact at all, not since finding him in their bedroom in the other world. He seemed to look _through_ him, as if one or the other was on a separate plane of existence entirely, as though they were worlds apart instead of in the same room together. Souji remained at his side for as long as the doctors would allow him, the same doctors that were growing more and more pessimistic about discovering the cause of his illness, because as far as they could tell, there _was_ no such cause.

Souji knew better, of course. What he didn’t know was what anyone could do about it.

He was using up sick days to be away from work, and honestly didn’t expect anyone else to do the same, but it still seemed that there was a constant stream of visitors coming by to see Yosuke or to offer their assistance should he and Nanako need something. Their friends that were still in Inaba had arrived after hearing the news, and were appearing sporadically as their work schedules permitted. Kanji brought food for them that he claimed his mother had made, but Souji thought he recognized something of the other man’s aesthetic sense in the carefully-arranged dishes. Yukiko and Chie arrived together, something Souji thought they’d been doing a lot more frequently lately, and Chie usually stayed the longest, long after Yukiko had left with a supportive hand on his shoulder and a reminder to ask if he needed anything. When Teddie came, he sat in the chair in the corner, legs pulled up close to his chest, and was uncharacteristically quiet. Guilty, perhaps, because Yosuke had come to harm in his world.

Whether they were visiting for Yosuke or for _him_, he didn’t know – except when Yosuke’s parents were the ones visiting, and then it was plain. They were the reason he’d gone home last night, when the nurse came to the room to kick out anyone who wasn’t a family member and they’d turned to him with a short, curt, “Goodnight, Seta-san”. It was too blunt to sting, or maybe he was already hurting too much to feel this additional little jab, but Nanako very nearly had smoke coming out her ears. He’d decided in the space of a second that the very last thing he needed was for a fight to break out, and promptly took his leave.

They were just being protective of their son, he’d rationalized. And considering the state he was in, it was maybe with good reason.

“I’m scared,” Souji admitted quietly, when Chie was saying goodbye to Yukiko in the hall that evening. Yosuke must have been asleep, or at least as close to it as he got in this state – he didn’t respond, not even with a meaningless mumble, but it felt good to say it out loud. Cathartic. “Why did you do it? What did it _say_ to you?”

More importantly, what did it matter? It was done, irreversible. They’d left the Shadow’s body on the floor of the backlot, unable to take it with them, and not really wanting to even if they could. Still, what would he do if it appeared on this side on the next foggy day? He’d have to deal with it somehow. At some point he’d have to go back in there and…

He grimaced, and clasped Yosuke’s hand tighter. No, he didn’t think he could bear to look at it again. Maybe when Yosuke was better. He _was_ going to get better. Maybe then he could – _they_ could –

“Hey,” said Chie, standing off to one side of the bed by the curtain that separated Yosuke from the rest of the room. “We’re probably going to get kicked out of here in a few minutes… You need a ride back to your place?” Souji opened his mouth to tell her that no, he didn’t, but she neatly cut across him. “Well, never mind, I’m giving you one anyway. Promised Yukiko that I’d get you home tonight.”

“Thank you,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes and trying to fight off his fatigue just a little longer. “You don’t have to do that.”

“C’mon, you gotta let me do something,” she mumbled, scuffing the floor with the toe of her shoe. “Feel so useless like this…”

Souji wanted to tell her how much he understood, but couldn’t find the words. He’d been the only one to witness firsthand what had happened – he wanted, _needed_ to find a way to fix this. He needed to puzzle out what had driven Yosuke to murder his Shadow, the meaning of the words he’d last spoken in that darkened bedroom, and then… what? He wasn’t sure. There was no guarantee that figuring it out would bring Yosuke back, but he had to do _something_. He couldn’t stand by and watch while someone he loved—

—_Wish you didn’t—_

“Chie,” he said at last. “You and Yosuke are pretty close.”

She snorted, humourlessly. “Sure, if you want to call it ‘close’…”

“He’d talk to you if he needed to…”

“Well, maybe. I dunno, really, he’s always had you for that. Why do you ask?”

He shook his head, frowning. “Did he ever… say anything to you about me?”

“About you?”

“Yeah. Or about us. Like maybe… maybe he regretted the way things turned out. Maybe he was… thinking of leaving me.”

“…You’re joking, right?” she said with a light, nervous laugh, a smile curving the edges of her mouth and her words. “He’s crazy about you. Always has been, even when you guys _weren’t_ together. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Souji, I like you, but man, try getting Yosuke to shut up about you for five minutes. Kinda makes me want to gag.” Her smile fell, slowly. “Why would you ask that, anyway? I thought things were good between the two of you…”

“They were,” said Souji. “They are. But he said something to me when I found him in the other world – that he wished I’d left him there. That he wished I didn’t love him. I don’t know what I should think of that.”

Chie frowned worriedly, and gazed at Yosuke’s unconscious form as she thought it over. “Maybe he was trying to get you to run,” she suggested slowly. “Get out of there before something happened to you, too. You know it’s the kind of dumbass thing he’d do…”

“…Trying to get me to run…” Souji repeated to himself absently. Something about it snagged his attention, but it didn’t seem to fit entirely right, either. Yosuke’s Shadow was dead, and he’d run the distance between the entrance hall and the shopping district without encountering a single other shadow on the way. Neither of them had been in any immediate danger of being attacked, so why would he want Souji to leave? While he pondered it, he realized that his thumbs were stroking Yosuke’s fingers, catching now and then on the ring he’d given him years ago, the same one Souji wore on his own hand. “There was something else,” he suddenly remembered. “His Shadow looked exactly like him, right down to what he was wearing when he left the house that morning, but his ring was missing.”

Chie said nothing, and Souji realized what it sounded like as he said it. His stomach dropped.

“Is that why he did it?” he asked aloud. “His Shadow wanted out, and he couldn’t stand to hear that?”

“That can’t be it,” Chie said firmly. “Souji, don’t even _think_ that.”

“I don’t know what else to think.”

And neither, apparently, did Chie. She stepped closer, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard, and didn’t say anything else until the nurse came around to tell them it was time to leave. And even then all she said was, “He’s tougher than he looks. We’ll figure it out.”

Souji nodded, and privately wondered how much time they had left to do so.

  


***

_January 12, 2021_

  
Nanako’s boyfriend made an appearance the next day, while Nanako herself was still at school. It was the first time Souji had laid eyes on him since the night he’d brought Yosuke back from the other world; doubtlessly, he hadn’t wished to tread on sensitive ground while Nanako was dealing with a family emergency, and Souji couldn’t say he blamed him. They came face to face when Souji decided he needed a few minutes of fresh air, and the young man appeared in the doorway, blocking his exit.

“Seta-san…” he began, and offered a quick, polite bow. “I’m sorry to hear that Hanamura-san still hasn’t recovered.”

“Thank you,” said Souji. He paused, allowed a moment of awkward silence to pass between them before speaking again. “…Yamada-kun, was it?”

“Amada, actually.”

“I’m sorry. I’m usually better with names, but it’s been…” But he decided he didn’t want to talk about that with a stranger, and quickly switched gears. “How’s Nanako-chan? She’s trying to be tough around me. Makes it hard to get a good read on her.”

Amada smiled sadly. “She’s… worried. About both of you. That’s kind of why I’m here…”

Souji gestured for Amada to follow him, and the two of them took chairs on either side of Yosuke’s hospital bed. Tiredly, guiltily, Souji couldn’t remember why he’d been so keen on distrusting Amada before he’d even met him – it was so stupid and silly in light of everything that had happened since then that it seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d felt that way. He wished he had the luxury right now of such petty concerns. And besides – didn’t he know exactly what it was like to have his partner’s parents’ offhand disapproval after having done nothing to earn it?

“There’s been no improvement at all, then?” Amada asked, nodding toward Yosuke, who lay still in his bed and gave a soft, expressionless groan.

“He’s not getting _worse_,” explained Souji with a tired sigh, “but he’s not getting better, either.”

“Have the doctors figured out what it is?”

“He’s perfectly healthy. They can’t seem to find a reason for it.”

“No,” said Amada, “they wouldn’t.”

Now that was an odd thing to say. Souji peered closely at him, and the boy looked back with a steady, assured gaze, and suddenly he thought to wonder – had he seen something like this before? Souji hadn’t thought anything of the wide-eyed shock that had registered on Amada’s face as he’d dragged Yosuke over the threshold of their apartment, it had matched Nanako’s so perfectly, but now that he thought about it, it seemed to him that it might have been a very _informed_ kind of shock, and not genuine _surprise_ at all.

“They wouldn’t,” Souji echoed. “But someone else might?”

Amada unzipped his coat, reached inside, and pulled out a large manila envelope which he passed to Souji wordlessly. He opened it. Inside, he found pages upon pages of internet printouts from various local news agencies, none of them dated more recently than a decade ago. Was this what Amada had been up to, instead of accompanying Nanako when she visited? He flipped through them, one after another, noticing quickly that they all said the same thing: unconsciousness, loss of mobility, aphasia, mental decline.

“Apathy Syndrome,” he read aloud.

“Ever heard of it?”

“No. I’ve heard of Iwatodai, though; I went there on a trip in high school. So did Nanako-chan, a few months ago.”

“I know,” said Amada, looking a little sheepish as he cast his gaze downward. “That’s where we met. I live there.”

Of course. Eager to avoid the subject of Nanako and Amada in any capacity of _together_ at this point in time, Souji scanned the reports again. Despite having a name to put to it, the reporters didn’t seem to have any better idea of what the hell it was than the doctors did. “By any chance… did you live there when all of _this_ happened?”

Amada nodded. “Hanamura-san’s… _affliction_ was quite widespread in Iwatodai in 2009. I saw others like him first-hand that year.”

Something about that piece of information, that such a mysterious illness had been isolated to one city during one year, didn’t sit well with Souji. Things like that didn’t just _happen_ without some underlying cause. Then again, if there were a cause, then it was possible… “Some of these articles say that all of the victims recovered,” Souji pressed. It was so hard not to set himself up for disappointment, but if there was a chance Yosuke could be saved, any chance at all… “Do you know how?”

“Yes,” said Amada. “And I want to help.”

Souji peered closely at him, taking his measure for a second time in an entirely new light. And then he asked his question again. “Do you know how?”

At this, Amada’s brave mask finally showed a crack. “Maybe,” he admitted. “I think so. I know how it worked back then, at least, and to be honest I really hope I’m wrong. But either way, it’s a better shot than you’re going to get here with the doctors.”

Yosuke made a soft noise, drawing Souji’s attention toward him. In his peripheral vision, he could see Amada watching them, maybe a little pitiably, and he felt a sudden, irrational burst of annoyance. Who was this kid, barging into his life all of a sudden? First encroaching on his space through Nanako, and now through Yosuke. But at the same time he could feel his Personas’ warm approval of him, more muted now perhaps than it would be in the other world, but there nonetheless – and on top of that, he could tell they were the same Personas that liked Nanako so much. Would wonders never cease.

“Okay,” said Souji, turning back toward him when Yosuke had quieted again. “So let’s start with what you know. And you can tell me _how_ you know it later.”

Another nod from Amada, and the rigid line of his shoulders eased downward perceptibly at Souji’s acceptance of his offer. “All right,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “Where to start?”

“Start with what it is.”

“Okay then. This… might not make a lot of sense, but I’ll explain it as plainly as I can. Apathy Syndrome is what happens when a part of someone – a very crucial part – separates from their psyche. It represents all the worst aspects of people, but because it’s composed of such raw emotion, they’re also some of the most important: deep, instinctual drives, creative energy –“

“The Shadow,” said Souji. Amada’s eyes widened, and he clarified, “I’ve read Jung.”

“Oh. Right.” The boy chuckled nervously, but his slip was telling, and Souji noticed it more plainly now than he had on the night they’d first met. “Um, so, basically the idea is that if the person’s Shadow has separated from them, then they can be cured by finding it and… coaxing it back inside.”

The flicker of hope that Souji had felt up until now was completely extinguished with those words.

“And what if his Shadow’s already dead?” he asked quietly.

Amada shook his head. “That can’t be. If it were killed, it would have returned to his body by now. He’d be cured.”

And then Souji knew for sure that he and Amada were talking about the same kind of Shadow, a real, physical manifestation and not just the archetype he’d read and written about in school. Amada, too, was looking at him closely, no doubt gauging what his apparent familiarity with the concept _really_ meant. “I saw it,” he said, by way of communicating this common wavelength to the boy. “His Shadow – I saw it. It’s dead.”

“That’s – not possible—“

“_I saw it_,” Souji repeated, a little more harshly than he'd meant to, and Amada’s shoulders went tense and rigid all over again. “I held it, felt it – had its blood all over me. Trust me: it was dead.”

“Seta-san… listen to me,” Amada said gently, trying to ease him down. “People can’t live without their Shadows. There’s no such thing as a person who doesn’t have one, even if it’s only split off from their psyches temporarily. A Shadow _can’t die_. Not unless its host is dead as well.”

Souji leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands on his face. Amada was wrong; he had to be. The image was still so strong in his mind – clinging tightly to the corpse of Yosuke’s Shadow, terrified and thinking it was Yosuke himself. The glazed yellow eye, the heavy, drooping, lifeless limbs…

The hand without a ring…

“You’re wrong,” said Souji, straightening in his chair after he had composed himself. “Yosuke murdered his Shadow. He told me so himself.”

And that, for some reason, left Amada gobsmacked. “He _spoke_ to you?” he asked, his voice rising sharply. “When?”

Souji frowned. “When I found him…”

“Seta-san,” said Amada urgently, “this is extremely important. If Hanamura-san’s Shadow has truly separated from him, he shouldn’t have been able to speak to you at all. Apathy Syndrome would have set in immediately. When did it start?”

“It… I don’t know. It wasn’t right away. It happened on the way home.”

“Then we need to go back to wherever you found him. His Shadow is still there.”

Souji’s head swam, caught halfway between soaring hope and utter dismay. He couldn’t forget what he’d seen in the other world, it had been so _real_ \-- but Amada’s insistence was infectious, and sounded more and more like it may have contained a kernel of truth. Why _had_ Yosuke been fine until they’d returned to this side? Confused and distressed, perhaps, but conscious, and mobile. Could it be possible, too, that the strange weakness that he and his friends had felt after accepting their Shadows was related to this Apathy Syndrome, to the temporary separation of their other selves from their psyches?

And hadn’t he once wondered, back when it had been Nanako who had been trapped on the other side, what happened to a person who left their Shadow over there?

“You’ve faced these things before?” Souji asked outright, just to be perfectly clear on what they were about to do. “You know they’re not friendly?”

“Yes,” said Amada, his mouth set in a firm line. “I know that.”

Souji nodded. “Then I’ll take you there.”

Amada agreed to wait for him in the hallway. When they were alone, Souji leaned down over Yosuke, touched his pale cheek and kissed him softly on his unresponsive lips.

“I’ll come back,” he promised, a whisper in his ear. “I’ll always come back. So you have to come back, too.”

Yosuke didn’t promise anything in return, but he didn’t need to. They’d already made that promise, a long time ago.


	3. Chapter 3

_Spring, 2013_

  
_It’s been just over a year since he’s last called upon one of his Personas, but Souji can still feel them sometimes, flitting about in his unconscious mind like stray, half-formed thoughts as they react with favour or amusement or disdain for the people he meets in day to day life. In time he becomes accustomed to their sort of wordless chattering, and by the time he makes it to university, it becomes little more than background noise to him, not unlike the static buzz of voices as he passes through a crowd: interesting when he stops to listen closely, but otherwise easily tuned out. And then, for a time, they fade into the peripheral edges of his awareness and he’s able to pretend like they don’t even exist at all, and they in turn seem content to remain there._

_Until he meets Kazumi._

_His senpai is in charge of the campus Psych society, which Souji joins early in his freshman year. At the first meeting it’s all business, something to put on his CV perhaps, but Inaba has changed him, and he finds himself attending meetings more and more with the goal in mind of trying to make friends. And of all the members, Kazumi draws his attention first and holds it the longest._

_He’s magnetic and energetic and smiles easily, smart as a whip and always ready with helpful advice when Souji finds the adjustment to university a little more difficult than he’d anticipated. They’re alike in plenty of ways, but it’s the differences that initially draw Souji to him. They’re both intelligent and ambitious and skilled at collecting friends, but Kazumi is _warm_ about it in a way Souji can only dream of being, and he’s utterly enthralled by his genuine nature. Where in himself he can’t help but see a fake – a cold, distant, pale reflection of the person his friends seem to see when they look at him – in Kazumi he sees the real thing. And for some reason – or perhaps for the_ same _reason, he thinks, when he’s a little more mature – Kazumi seems interested in him, as well._

_Lunchtime meetings lead to after-class socializing, first with their mutual acquaintances from their academic group, and then eventually with each other. Kazumi presses, so Souji shares with him a carefully edited version of the most recent few years of his life._

_“No girlfriend, then?” Kazumi asks casually._

_Souji opens his mouth to respond, and then closes it. Kazumi’s actually wrong on this one – he’s good-looking and sociable enough, so of course he’s dated girls before. But none of them make it into his condensed history when he puts it into words, and that doesn’t escape his senpai’s keen notice. “No,” he finally says. “You?”_

_“Nah. No time, you know?”_

_Souji does know. That’s what he tells himself, too, and what he told the girls he’s broken up with. But despite this professed lack of time and the endless work piling up, Kazumi never says_ no _when Souji asks him if he wants to do something, and Souji finds himself staying awake well into the night finishing work that should have been done hours earlier while he was spending time with his senpai._

_His roommates like to party, like to tease him for being so straight-laced and single-minded about his work, and he never really pushes back, which only leads to teasing about other things as well._ Seta’s off to see his boyfriend_, one of them croons drunkenly to the others’ delight as Souji’s heading out one evening, and it takes him a second to compose himself after he’s closed the door behind him. Not because he’s insulted by the insinuation, but because now he’s going to be_ thinking_ about it all night, and that just really isn’t what it’s like between them at all._

_He meets Kazumi and they have dinner and then catch a movie that Souji can barely remember because for one, it’s awful, and for two, he can’t stop thinking about his roommate’s parting shot and whether or not this entire outing constitutes a_ date_. He still hasn’t decided by the time they reach his dorm, and by then, Kazumi’s leaning toward him until their faces are very, very close and Souji looks him in the eyes and doesn’t back away, and his lips are warm against his own when they press together, and_ that_ burning question’s put to rest rather decisively. It’s not the worst thing to happen to him, he thinks, as Kazumi’s hand comes to rest at the back of his neck; surely it has to rank lower on the strangeness scale than throwing himself through a television screen. This is nothing at all in comparison. In fact, he decides, this is kind of nice._

_And then his Personas, so quiet as of late, choose exactly that moment to explode into a noisy, messy flurry of confusion and activity. Kazumi is a Magician, he suddenly notices, and all of his Magicians are awake and abuzz with excitement and adoration. He feels Hua Po’s tiny wings in the flutter of his stomach as his senpai kisses him, Surt’s flame in the intensity with which he begins to kiss back, and his courage is tempered and made resolute by the approval of all his myriad other selves._

_Except for Mada._

_Mada wants absolutely nothing to do with Kazumi at all. In the months that follow, he suspects it’s Mada that supplies the lingering sense of guilt on the end of every kiss, that makes him hide the little reminders of Yosuke he’s left lying around his room when Kazumi comes to visit. It’s probably Mada that leaves him lying awake for hours after that first time, long after Kazumi has slipped into an exhausted and contented slumber next to him. He shouldn’t feel guilty, he tries to convince himself. It’s not like he’s_ cheating_. It’s not like Yosuke would ever know or care or like guys in the first place, and it’s not like he even knows how the hell he feels about Yosuke_ anyway_…_

_But it’s not Yosuke he feels like he’s cheating on, and he knows it. Suspects it, at least. Suspects it a little stronger when Kazumi invites him to live with him, and he can’t say_ yes_ right away. He doesn’t know it for sure until he’s back in Inaba that summer, and with the acknowledgement comes a sad certainty that he can’t do this anymore._

 

  
_***_   
__   


_  
September 2013_

  
_“There’s… someone else.”_

_Kazumi doesn’t look overly surprised. Somehow, Souji thinks, sitting in the desk chair with his forearms on his knees and his hands clasped together and trying to look at the hollow of his boyfriend’s throat instead of his face as he fumbles his way through this, that makes the admission all the more difficult._

_“In Inaba?” Kazumi asks after a moment. Souji nods silently. “I figured. You’ve always been pretty closed off, but more so about that place. You could have said something.”_

_Yosuke isn’t the reason Souji doesn’t talk much about Inaba, of course, but he can’t tell Kazumi that. In the end, it’s the only thing that makes this a little bit easier: there’s no future for them if they can’t be honest with each other, and Souji can never be fully honest with Kazumi._

_“I’m sorry,” says Souji, after he’s done explaining. “I thought I was over it. Thought I could just… I’m sorry.”_

_“Yeah,” says Kazumi quietly. “Me too.”_

_“You must hate me…”_

_Kazumi’s smile comes noticeably less easily than it did the first time they’d met, and despite everything, Souji’s heart still aches to know that it’s his fault._

_“Not enough to hope he ever does the same thing to you,” Kazumi replies, and it stings, but that just ensures that Souji never forgets it._

 

  
_***_   
__   


__

January 12, 2021

  
Souji was partly relieved and partly unnerved by the conspicuous absence of the Shadow’s body as he and Amada emerged from the televisions in the backlot. The pool of blood remained, stagnant now, no longer encroaching on the clean black and white rings in the center of the floor, but there was no sign of its source anywhere.

“We didn’t move the body,” Souji said. “It was right there when we left.”

“So it isn’t dead after all,” said Amada, adjusting Yosuke’s borrowed glasses on his nose a little awkwardly.

“Can’t say for sure yet. We’re not exactly alone in here.”

It felt like a stupid thing to say, seeing as there was no sign of life anywhere at all around them, but Amada seemed to understand. “Then let’s be careful,” he said. “But supposing it _did_ get up and leave on its own… do you have any idea where it might have gone?”

“Yeah,” said Souji, hefting the flashlight he’d picked up from home in one hand, and one of his old swords in the other. “I’ve got a few.”

 

  
***   


 

There were shadows in the shopping district now, clustered just out of sight off the main road at the edges of the darkness where the streetlamps didn’t reach, watching and waiting as Souji and Amada walked to the north end of the deserted street. Amada gave no indication that he knew they were there, but Souji could definitely tell. Were they gathering now because of the Shadow, or had they been here all along and he’d been too distressed last time to notice?

Regardless, the shadows weren’t Souji’s primary concern. If they were keeping their distance, it meant they were afraid of them, and rightly so. The real concern on Souji’s mind at the moment was: what was he going to do about Amada?

Amada had insisted on accompanying him, and Souji couldn’t think of a legitimate reason to turn down his help. Amada was the only person who seemed to have a grip on what was wrong with Yosuke, and if something else were to go wrong while Souji was in here, he needed to know what he should do instead of acting blindly and accidentally causing more harm. Unfortunately, Shadows didn’t particularly care who was present when they so freely spoke the minds of their hosts, and some part of Souji was reluctant to let anyone aside from him bear witness to those thoughts, if only to spare Yosuke the embarrassment of –

Something throbbed inside him, in his _mind_, he was sure, but a sharp pain lanced into his chest at the same time and left behind a dull, dark ache that waxed and waned as he breathed. He clenched his teeth. _All right_, he conceded to himself, to his _other_ self. _It’s not for Yosuke. It’s for me. I don’t want Amada to hear what he might say about us…_

It was with this thought in mind when they reached the doorway of his apartment that Souji turned to him and said, “I want you to wait here.”

“What?” Amada balked. “I can’t do that. You don’t know what might be in there.”

“In there?” Souji indicated the door with a jerk of his head. “I have a pretty good idea. It’s out _here_ I’m worried about. There are shadows down there just waiting around for some reason, and I need you to be my eyes while I’m inside. If you see something, anything, come get me – don’t go after it alone. _Especially_ if it looks like you.”

Amada seemed confused about that last part, but eventually nodded his understanding. With his agreement secured, Souji took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and stepped into the dark apartment for the second time.

This time when he entered and quietly shut the door behind him, he could tell right away that it was nothing like the apartment back in the real world. This time, he saw by the flashlight as he swept its beam across the kitchen, it was utterly destroyed, almost unrecognizable as the place he called home. The floor was littered with scraps of papers and pieces of furniture and broken glass and ceramic fragments, the table and chairs overturned, the curtains torn half-down, the windows smashed to pieces. Souji crept cautiously forward into the wreckage, glass crunching under the soles of his shoes with every step, and he cringed at how badly the noise gave away his approach.

Not that he had any illusions whatsoever that the Shadow didn’t know he was coming.

A cold breeze drifted in through the broken windows, fluttered the fallen curtains at the edge of his vision in ways that made him freeze and snap the flashlight beam in their direction, but there was nothing there. Still, something about the distraction felt wrong. Hadn’t the air outside been as utterly still on his way here as it had always been in this world…?

His mind lit up with a hasty warning from Mada, a wordless urge to _turn around_, and he whirled on the spot with his sword already striking out in an upward diagonal sweep. It would have cut the Shadow from hip to shoulder, had its arc not been expertly stopped by the twin blades in the other’s hands.

“Get out,” it spat, its teeth bared almost ferally, eyes burning with that unnatural yellow glare. Souji took a bracing step backward just to put a little distance between them, and bumped into the edge of the counter when the Shadow didn’t back down.

“Yosuke--”

“_Get out!_” This time the words were accompanied by a furious burst of wind that took Souji’s breath away. “Are you fucking stupid? Take a look around. _I don’t want you here._”

It enunciated each word so harshly and clearly and with such malice that Souji’s resolve almost slipped. But he held on. He’d suspected the Shadow would try to hurt him, in as many ways as it could, and now it was up to him to weather it until it was over.

“Yosuke…” Better to call it what it wanted to be called, Souji thought. Shadows were not complicated creatures; it was a matter of figuring out what they wanted, and he knew this one in particular yearned to be acknowledged even more than its human counterpart. No matter what his form, Yosuke never did change. “I thought you were dead.”

“Did you? Well it wasn’t for that moron’s lack of trying, that’s for sure.”

“Why did he attack you?”

“Oh, the usual,” said the Shadow. “I try to do that dumbass a favour and tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, and he gets all _pissy_. Pulls a knife out of fucking nowhere and guts me. Heh, as if that did any good. At least I got him, too, before I went down.”

Souji tried to push his sword forward, to gain a little more ground before his arm got tired, but he was caught in an awkward position and the Shadow had the advantage. It pushed back with its knives until the dull side of Souji’s blade was almost pressed up against his chest, until he was nearly bending backwards over the counter as he tried to lean away.

“You put on a good show, by the way,” said the Shadow, its oily grin stretching wider across its face. “I haven’t seen you cry in so long. You’d really be that broken up if that loser died? Geez…”

“You were just having fun with me, then?” Souji growled.

“Maybe just a bit. I wanted to see what you’d do. See if you’d just give up and go away, you know? But hey, you didn’t. A little longer in here on his own and he would have either bled to death or been devoured, but lucky he had you to come to his rescue, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Souji. “Lucky.”

He lashed out with his foot, striking the Shadow’s knee and weakening its stance at the same time that he shoved himself forward, using his free hand to propel himself off the counter. The Shadow stumbled back a step, just enough to trip over a broken chair, but it caught itself before it could fall. Like Yosuke, the Shadow possessed considerably more grace and balance in this world than in the other.

“Hey, not so rough, _partner_,” the Shadow laughed nastily. “No need to try so hard anymore. It’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_, no more throwing yourself into danger to rescue your _wife_. No more pretending to be good buds who just can’t seem to find themselves girlfriends. We’re done. I don’t want you anymore.”

It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. His discussion with Chie had prepared him for this possibility, and besides, it was just a Shadow. But at the same time, he could still hear the normal pitch of Yosuke’s voice underneath the twisted echo, and hearing him say those words...

“You don’t mean that,” he said anyway, as much to convince himself as the Shadow.

“What makes you think that? Because you’re so goddamn special that I’d have to be crazy to turn you down? Rein in your ego for a sec, partner, and face it: I’m done with you.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“You’re too stubborn for your own good, you know that? Fine. Have it your way. One way or another, we’re going to be rid of you, and everything will go back to normal. If you won’t give up…” Slowly, it began flipping one of its knives into the air and catching it on its descent, the way Souji had seen Yosuke do it a thousand times before. “Then we’ll do this the hard way.”

“You don’t scare me,” said Souji, and it was only partially a lie. “Pretending to be dead – tearing up our house – you think I can’t figure out this is all for show? You don’t want to _hurt_ me, you want me to ‘give up and go away’.  You want me to _run_. That’s how you are, that’s the way you’ve _always_ been. If someone has to make the first move, you want it to be me.”

At this, the Shadow laughed outright. “You know me too well, partner. I’m too chickenshit to end it myself, but oh, if only we weren’t _fucking_. You think my parents would love me then?”

“Is that it?” Souji asked, finally getting a clearer picture of what was really going on after just now piecing together the Shadow’s intention to drive him away. “That’s what this is about? You feel like you have to choose between me and your family?”

“Sound familiar? Only I’m not as brave as you, partner. You were strong enough to hang onto me and Nanako-chan when _your_ parents came calling, but I’m just not that good. I don’t _want_ to have to choose. When it comes down to it, I have to either pick you or leave you, and I’m not strong enough to do either.”

“That’s fine. It’s not an easy choice to make, Yosuke. I understand that.”

“Maybe not for him. For me though? That’s a whole other story.” The Shadow reversed its grip on its knives, hiding the blades by tucking them up against its inside forearms. Souji recalled being told by somebody once to run the fuck away if he ever saw someone holding a knife like that, and he gripped his sword tighter by reflex. “You know what my old man told me once, when this whole mess started? That I can choose who I want to be with, but I can’t choose my parents. I’m thinking maybe they were right. I’m thinking that maybe if you’re not in the picture anymore, I can find someone else -- a nice _girl_ \-- and then they’ll stop treating me like I’ve ruined their_ goddamn lives_.”

Souji tuned out the last part of that sentence, caught up on the words _someone else_, and suddenly he was thinking of Kazumi. This couldn’t have been anything like what his senpai had imagined when he’d told him he hoped their places would never be reversed, but Souji understood his feelings now, better than ever. This wasn’t why he had hurt Kazumi needlessly, so that he could throw away everything he’d given up their relationship for. He was going to fight, and he was going to win, and he was going to get Yosuke back no matter what the cost.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Souji insisted, even as he raised his sword into a cautious center guard position.

The Shadow smirked. “Are you sure?”

“Whether you’re a Shadow or a Persona or whatever else you might be, you’re still Susano-O. You’re still _Yosuke_. And even if he doesn’t want me anymore, he doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“Now, see, that’s where you’re getting all tripped up. Sure, he doesn’t _want_ to hurt you – but when has that ever stopped that dumbass from opening his mouth and saying all the wrong things _anyway_? He’s as capable of hurting you as he is anybody else, so if I were you…”

The Shadow flashed one of its knives, and its teeth as it grinned.

“I’d start hurting back.”

It came at him, fast – much faster than he was ready for, and one of the blades caught him across the arm as he dove aside to dodge. He kicked the flashlight across the floor accidentally and it lit up the debris around their feet, and he did his best to step around it as he fended off the Shadow’s advance. It was easy to see in the darkness, with its bright eyes and its outline lit up by the tainted glow emanating from its body, but it was difficult to follow its quick, fluid movements without the benefit of full light.

His sword wasn’t going to help him much, he knew. It was easy enough to block one of the Shadow’s knives, but then he was wide open and defenseless against the second, and after he was cut a second time across the cheek, he knew he needed to find another way to fight. He disengaged and turned and ran, barreling out the door and onto the stairs where Amada stood waiting anxiously.

“Run!” Souji barked at him, and Amada didn’t need to be told twice. They pounded down the stairs and ran out into the street, and it wasn’t until they were safely in range of the streetlights that Souji turned around to face their pursuer.

“That’s not fair, partner,” said the Shadow when it caught up to them. “Now it’s two against one. Let’s give your friend something to do while we sort this out.”

As if at last given permission to move, the shadows lurking just out of sight off the road began to creep toward them, dragging themselves closer and closer with their long, spindly arms. Amada wielded another of Souji’s swords to protect himself, but it was clear from his stance and the awkward angle at which he held the blade that he didn’t really know how to handle it.

“Stick close to me,” said Souji, keeping his back to Amada and his eye and the point of his sword firmly on Yosuke’s Shadow. “Don’t let them surround—“

“_Kala-Nemi_!”

A gunshot rang out next to Souji’s ear, and both he and the Shadow instinctively cringed away from the sound and cursed simultaneously in surprise. Souji whirled around to see what the hell had happened, and saw – he didn’t even know –

But he did know what it was. It was a Persona, a gigantic one, and there were the glowing golden ofuda of a Mahamaon spell rising up out of the ground all around them. When the lights flared and then vanished almost all at once, at least half the shadows caught in the spell’s radius were wiped out in an instant, and the others hesitated to advance.

“I’m fine,” said Amada. “Hurry up and take care of him.”

Souji turned back to the Shadow, which had been spared the effect of the spell. Amada’s idea hadn’t been a bad one, actually. “Izanagi!” he called out, and his own Persona appeared, immediately sending electricity arcing in the Shadow’s direction. Its attempt at guarding came too late, and the shock weakened it visibly when it made contact. As he dashed forward to attack again, the Shadow retaliated by calling down another biting blast of wind that made Souji’s head spin and his knees go weak, and the two of them were staggered for a moment. The Shadow recovered first and charged at him, and Souji could only just barely get his sword up in time to knock it off balance so that his forearm took the blade instead of his heart.

He was distantly glad, for the split-second he had to think about it, that Yosuke wasn’t here. He could handle the Shadow in its human form, but he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to do the same if Yosuke were here to deny its claims. And he could be reasonably sure that Yosuke _would_ deny it, if he’d already attempted to kill it for voicing his own thoughts…

“Seta-san!” Amada called out. “Hurry!”

The wrappings on the sword’s handle itched against his palms. He could do this… Yosuke needed him to be able to do this…

But when the moment came – when the Shadow swung too wide and Izanagi’s electricity jolted through its body and weakened it again – Souji couldn’t follow through. He tried so hard to tell himself it was okay, that the creature only _looked_ like Yosuke, it was him but _not_ him… But the Shadow looked him dead in the eyes with the face he knew so well and loved so much, and he couldn’t raise his weapon to deal the fatal blow. What if Amada was wrong? _People can’t live without their Shadows_, he’d said. What if killing the Shadow, _really_ killing it, would actually mean Yosuke’s death? He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be responsible for that…

His hesitation left him open, and the Shadow struck. This time he couldn’t deflect it, and he felt cold metal pierce flesh as a knife sank deeply into his side. He gasped in pain and grabbed onto the front of the Shadow’s shirt as he sagged against it, saw the slow, wicked smile above him as it raised its other arm to finish him off –

And then Izanagi did what he couldn’t bring himself to do. He reared back, readied his massive blade, and plunged it through the Shadow’s midsection, missing Souji by bare inches. There was no time for parting words, nothing else to be said or done except for the Shadow to simply dissolve like all the others of its kind as it died. It vanished completely, leaving behind one knife that clattered to the ground, and the other that was lodged in Souji’s body.

“Seta-san!” Amada cried again, as he ran to catch Souji as he sank to the ground.

Souji could barely think around the pain, around the blind need to get the goddamned thing _out_ of him, and he weakly fought Amada’s attempts to stop him from removing the knife. In the end, he managed to get a grip on the handle, and he all but screamed through his tightly clenched teeth as he pulled it out and clutched at his bleeding side, doubling over onto the pavement when it was done.

“Ishtar…” Souji hissed.

“W-what?” Amada asked, before he realized that Souji wasn’t speaking to him. He looked up as the beautiful horned goddess appeared, taking Souji in her arms and bathing him in her protective light, and when she had faded again, the wound was closed and the pain was numbed enough for Souji to sit up a little.

“Do you think that did it?” he asked, wincing.

“I… Yeah, it should have…”

Souji dragged himself to his feet and looked around. The smaller shadows had retreated again with the defeat of Yosuke’s, gone back to cringing where they couldn’t be seen. “You surprised me, Amada-kun…You said you’d seen shadows before, but I didn’t think you’d have a Persona.”

Souji looked at him, and there was an odd _tightness_ in Amada’s face as he replied, “I didn’t think you’d have more than one.”

 

  
***   


 

When they walked into Yosuke’s hospital room, Souji’s world almost ended.

From the door, he could see Nanako and Chie, holding each other and crying, and his heart suddenly found itself somewhere near his shoes. _It didn’t work_, he thought, as he came to a dead stop in the doorway and leaned heavily on the frame. _Oh god, he was wrong, I_ killed _him..._

But then Nanako looked up and saw them, and her reddened face broke out into a wide grin. “Big bro!” she cried. “He’s awake!”

Souji found enough strength in his legs to carry him the rest of the way into the room, past the curtain that kept Yosuke’s bed hidden from view, and saw for himself. Yosuke looked pale and miserable, but he was indeed awake, and he managed to look at Souji as he appeared at the foot of his bed.

“Hey partner…” he mumbled, and then closed his eyes as if that greeting had required most of his energy.

“S-stupid… jerk…” Chie sniffled, wiping her eyes on her sleeve furiously. “We were s-so worried!”

The weakness in Souji’s limbs was now relief instead of fear, but either way, he still needed to brace himself on the bed’s railing for a moment so he wouldn’t fall down and embarrass himself. “Just you guys here?” he asked. “Does anyone else know yet?”

“The nurses went to call his parents,” said Nanako. “We were going to let everyone else know, too, right after you got here…”

Now armed with a rough idea of how much time he had, Souji rounded the end of the bed and stopped at Yosuke’s side. He leaned down over him and gave him as much of a hug as he could manage with one of them lying down, and buried his face in Yosuke’s pillow so the others couldn’t see. As he twisted his fingers into the loose fabric of the hospital gown, he felt Yosuke’s hand on his shoulder a moment later, felt a faint movement and heard quiet words as Yosuke turned his head toward him and asked what was wrong.

“A-all right, everybody out!” Chie ordered, clapping her hands a few times for good measure. “Nanako-chan, Ken-kun, let’s go tell everyone the good news!”

They filed out of the room quickly and quietly, leaving the two of them alone. But despite the limited amount of time they had right now, Souji didn’t trust himself to speak right away. There was so much to say and ask, and he wasn’t even sure where to start or how much Yosuke would be able to talk about…

“You did something, didn’t you?” Yosuke asked, his voice rough and raspy from weakness and lack of use. “I feel weird…”

“I saw your Shadow,” Souji answered quietly. “We had a… talk.”

The little stroking motions Yosuke’s hand had been making against Souji’s shoulder stopped completely.

“It’s… not dead…?” he whispered.

“No. And don’t _ever_\--“ Souji gently thumped Yosuke on the shoulder for emphasis “—go into that place alone _ever again_. We _promised_, Yosuke.”

Yosuke made a tiny, miserable moaning noise. “I’m… sorry… God, I’m sorry, I dunno what…” He took a second to breathe, to collect his thoughts, and then kept going. “It wouldn’t… leave me alone. I heard it all the time, it wouldn’t _stop_, and then… it said…”

He was getting distressed – the heartrate monitor began to beep faster and faster in time with the rapid pounding Souji could feel against his own chest. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly, drawing back at last so he could look at him. “I know what it said. It’s okay.”

“It’s not true,” Yosuke said, as firmly as he could. “I don’t… want you to go anywhere, I don’t _want_ that…”

“I know,” said Souji. “But you do want your parents to love you… more than anything. And if you don’t accept that…”

Yosuke grimaced, and turned his face away, clearly ashamed of what Souji had seen, and Souji felt immediately guilty for pressing him about it so soon after waking.

“Never mind,” he said, leaning down to kiss his cheek, and then nuzzling his face down against his neck and drawing a shaky breath. “It can wait. I’m just… glad you’re back…”

“Dude…” Yosuke mumbled, the faintest ghost of amusement in his voice. “Don’t you start crying on me, too…”

“Okay,” Souji promised, and then broke it five seconds later.

 

  
***   


 

_January 17, 2021_

  
Yosuke was well enough to come home in a matter of days, and although the doctors still couldn’t figure out what had been wrong with him in the first place, they released him under strict orders to return for frequent checkups over the next several weeks. The occasion was celebrated by jamming all their friends into their tiny apartment and eating the ridiculous amounts of food Souji and Nanako had prepared for them, and resolutely not talking about what had happened just a week ago.

To Souji and Yosuke’s surprise, their gathering included two unexpected guests – Yosuke’s parents, who showed up towards the end to check up on their son. It was the first time the Hanamuras had ever set foot on their doorstep, and though they didn’t stay long, they both hugged Yosuke tightly and called Souji “Seta-kun” before leaving, which they figured had to count for _something_.

“Okay… That was weird and uncomfortable,” Yosuke announced, after his parents had left.

“They’re just happy you’re okay,” said Yukiko. “Sometimes it takes a crisis to put things in perspective, you know?”

“Yeah,” Souji agreed, and he rather awkwardly made eye contact across the room with Amada, who to his credit seemed to sense the awkwardness as well and went back to chatting with Nanako like nothing had happened.

When everyone had left, Souji, Yosuke, and Nanako stood in the kitchen and said their goodbyes to Amada, who was on his way back to Iwatodai in the morning. He could tell Nanako wanted them to go away so that she could say her goodbyes in private, but Souji hovered nearby anyway – he had a thing or two to say to Amada himself, after all.

“Thank you,” was the first of these things, and Amada looked surprised to hear him say it. “You don’t know how much what you did means to me – to all of us.”

“Seriously, dude,” said Yosuke, a little sheepishly. “You saved my life. I kinda owe you big time.”

“That’s not…” Amada began, but then apparently decided not to be rude and to take the gratitude he was being offered. He bowed low. “I was glad to help.”

“You’re welcome to come back any time you like,” said Souji. “And if there’s anything you need from us…”

“Well… now that you mention it…” said Amada as he straightened. “I want to marry Nanako-chan and I was hoping to have your blessing—“

Souji smiled pleasantly.  “Get out,", he said, and Amada could barely protest that it had been a joke before Yosuke was escorting him outside and closing the door after him.

“Why are you so mean?” Nanako huffed as she opened the door to follow him.

“Because it’s fun,” said Yosuke.

“Yeah, mostly that,” Souji agreed. “And he can take it. He’s a good kid. So hurry up and go after him, already.”

Nanako stuck her tongue out at them, but was all smiles as she pulled her coat on and hurried out the door.

 

  
***   


  
_January 18, 2021_

  
“Shoot,” said Souji, as they walked past the shrine while carrying their groceries up the hill toward home. “I forgot to do something.”

“Oh yeah?” Yosuke asked curiously. “What is it?”

He veered off the road and onto the shrine property, making fresh footprints in the newly fallen snow. As he set his bags down and rummaged in his pockets for some money, Souji’s eyes were drawn to several tiny sets of paw prints leading up to and away from the offertory box, and he grinned.

“It can’t be the same one, can it?” Yosuke asked when he noticed what Souji was looking at. “I figured that greedy little bastard would be extorting people in foxy heaven by now.”

“There wouldn’t be any people in foxy heaven,” Souji reminded him, as he tossed his coins into the box.

“Point. So what’s this about? Did you make a wish or something?”

Souji didn’t answer in words. He gathered up his bags in one hand, and took Yosuke’s hand in the other, and for the thirty-second walk home, there was nothing in the world that could touch them.  



End file.
